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Utilities work very hard to never be seen or noticed. People expect the lights will go on with the flick of a switch, the water will flow with the turn of a tap and the waste will disappear with the push of a toilet toggle. And for the overwhelming majority of Americans every day, that’s exactly what happens.
Utilities become most visible when they don’t work: when a storm knocks down a line and the TV shuts off, when an aging water main breaks and the tap water becomes murky or non-existent. They also become visible when the bills jump — whether it’s an act of the customer’s own doing, as in letting a leaky faucet go unrepaired, or an error on the part of the provider, as PPL customers saw rates surge not so long ago.
For many people, all those times things worked exactly as planned don’t matter. The endless days or non-interruption, the gallons and gallons of water they drank or used to bathe or do laundry, the countless flushes — those are forgotten. Few, if any, ever think, “Wow, another fine (place action here) thanks to (place utility provider here). But when it doesn’t work, the company is incompetent, overpaid and clearly indifferent to the needs of those they are supposed to serve.
Yet if you had been given the chance to sit in an meeting the Times Leader had with representatives from several major companies recently, you might have a very different view of what they do that goes so thoroughly unnoticed by most.
Representatives from UGI, PPL, American Water and the economic development agency Penn’s Northeast covered a lot of territory in explaining everything they do — everything they need to do — to serve existing customers, to replace antiquated infrastructure, and to prepare for expected growth in both commercial development and the ensuing residential demands. Frankly, it is quite astounding.
The three utilities spend millions each year upgrading and/or expanding capacity. They invest heavily in community support, in part to simply be good neighbors, but also to generate some good PR. They have no choice but to keep looking forward in anticipation of what will be needed when, say, all those acres scheduled for development by companies such as Mericle actually start demanding electricity, water and sewage service.
And each of them pointed out that it’s not just about making sure existing customers are satisfied. They are core components of any significant economic development. All three utilities talked of how the Marcellus shale natural gas boom has been a dramatic “game changer” for the state and the region. And how much demand has grown as traditional locations for many businesses have simply become saturated.
Luzerne County has prime access via interstates and rail to serve a huge section of the nation’s northeast, parts of Canada, and even points south. All three utilities stressed that big corporations do not move where utilities are at all unreliable. Having a record of successful service and of successfully servicing incoming business is a huge part of the region’s economic growth. That includes everything from power generation and transmission to water flowing, sewage going and fire hydrants always at full pressure.
They do all this across time spans that force them to deal with changing political priorities and public opinion . They do it amid growing threats to infrastructure from bad actors who see it as a legitimate target in some misguided cause. And they do it as the very nature of their own work shifts beneath their feet with technological advances and environmental demands.
You can read some of the details elsewhere, but make no mistake. You may think you can’t see what utility companies do until you need them, but you’d be wrong.
Just look around. Nearly everything you see in your daily life has their fingerprints on it, literally and figuratively.
– Times Leader